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BUCKNACKT'S SORDID TAWDRY BLOG We should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive & well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate, bier or wein in hand, body thoroughly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WHOO-HOO, WHAT A RIDE!!!!!!"
Showing posts with label filibuster. Show all posts
Showing posts with label filibuster. Show all posts
07 April 2025
DEMOCRACY NOW: Workers vs. Musk: Federal Unions Resist Attacks on Bargaining Rights & Cuts to Essential Services , A Blueprint for Resisting Trump Education Cuts? Chicago Teachers Reach "Powerful" Tentative Contract , The Darkest Hour of Need": Burmese Junta Continues Bombing in Aftermath of Devastating Earthquake, Israeli Attacks on Gaza Kill 42 Palestinians as Army Orders Rafah Residents to Flee, Israel Bombs Beirut Suburb, Killing at Least 4, Top Netanyahu Aides Arrested on Corruption Charges as Anti-Government Protests Continue, Cornell Doctoral Student Momodou Taal Leaves U.S. Amid Deportation Threats, Columbia Grads Tear Up Diplomas to Protest University’s Capitulation to Trump over Gaza Protests, Trump Administration Threatens to Withhold $8.7 Billion in Grants to Harvard over Gaza Protests, Iran’s Supreme Leader Promises “Reciprocal Blow” to Trump’s Threat of Violence, China Holds War Games Off Taiwan After Hegseth Pledges Military Cooperation with Japan, Sen. Cory Booker Holds All-Night Filibuster Against Trump Agenda, Federal Court Temporarily Restores Protected Status for 350,000 Venezuelan Immigrants, U.S. Transfers More Immigrants to Salvadoran Prison, Admits to “Error” in Deportation of Maryland Dad, On Transgender Day of Visibility, Activists Condemn MAGA Attacks on Trans and Nonbinary People 1APR25
26 July 2021
30 May 2021
Sign the petition: Pass the George Floyd Act 30MAI21
IT is a disgrace the Senate fascist republican's are threatening a filibuster to defeat this legislation. This is confirmation they condone and endorse the racist, bigoted, hateful rhetoric of the former drumpf / trump-pence administration and is a declaration by the gop/greed-over-people republican party that only white lives matter to them and their neo-nazi, fascist base. Please sign this petition by Demand Progress calling on Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice In Policing Act and take the time to e mail your representative and senators and tell them to eliminate the filibuster rule in the U.S. Senate or at the least amend it and then pass the George Floyd Act.
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Will you add your name and tell Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act?
One year ago, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin. He should still be alive today -- and so should countless other people killed by police, like Daunte Wright, Breonna Taylor, Charleena Lyles, Tamir Rice, and Michael Brown.
President Biden set a deadline of May 25 -- the one year anniversary of the murder of George Floyd-- for Congress to pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act. Congress has failed to meet it.1 In fact, Democrats are even considering watering down the bill, allowing police to get away with similar crimes.2
Police continue to show us that they can't be trusted to reform their own behaviors. The House passed the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act in March to hold police accountable and make sweeping changes. But it's stuck in the Senate, where the Democratic majority is wasting time negotiating with Republicans. It's time to act.
Police are often protected from prosecution when they kill civilians like George Floyd, thanks to a legal doctrine known as "qualified immunity."
The George Floyd Justice in Policing Act would restrict qualified immunity that police officers use to shield themselves from accountability when they kill.
Republicans oppose that provision and insist it be removed. Some Democrats are considering caving to those demands, despite polls that show 59% of all Americans agree on ending qualified immunity.3 But they don't have to -- especially if they abolish the filibuster and thus remove any need to win Republican votes.
The filibuster was created to uphold white supremacy and slavery, and over the last 190 years has been used to uphold Jim Crow and other forms of racial segregation and oppression. Now it's being used to uphold police violence.
The House already passed the George Floyd Act, but Republicans can use the filibuster to block the George Floyd Act in the Senate. Instead of holding police accountable when they kill people, Republicans in the Senate will use a procedural roadblock to make sure no real reforms can pass.
That's why it's absolutely critical that you speak up and speak loudly -- and do so right now.
Sign the petition: Tell Congress to end the filibuster and pass the George Floyd Act!
Thanks for taking action,
Robert and the team at Demand Progress
Sources:
1. CNBC, "Congress is set to miss Biden’s deadline to pass police reform bill as talks move forward," May 24, 2021.
2. The Hill, "Clyburn says he's willing to compromise on qualified immunity in policing bill," May 9, 2021.
3. The Hill, "Police reform fight hinges on qualified immunity," May 25, 2021.
PAID FOR BY DEMAND PROGRESS (DemandProgress.org) and not authorized by any candidate or candidate's committee. Contributions are not deductible as charitable contributions for federal income tax purposes. Join our online community on Facebook or Twitter.
08 April 2017
Senate Confirms Gorsuch To Supreme Court 7APR17
FASCIST, right wing extremist neil gorsuch has been approved by the repiglican controlled senate after Senatsmehrfotzeheit mitch mcconnell r KY invoked the nuclear option so gorsuch could be approved as the next justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. mcconnell tries to blame the senate Democrats but this is a result of mcconnell's publically stated plan to obstruct Pres Obama. Not only did mcconnell and the senate repiglicans block Merrick Garland from the entire confirmation process the article below notes " Indeed, during President Barack Obama's first term, Republicans blocked or delayed executive branch and lower court nominations 79 times. That's more than half of all the 149 filibusters used against presidential nominees in the nation's history. The Democrats noted that even as they abolished the filibuster for executive and lower court nominations in 2013, they left it in place for Supreme Court nominations, believing that lifetime appointments to the nation's highest court are different. " Now, instead of threats to our civil liberties, civil rights, human rights, to the U.S. Constitution coming from right wing political fanatics the threats will be coming from the high court itself, the very court that is supposed to protect us all. This from +NPR .....
Senate Confirms Gorsuch To Supreme Court
Updated at 2:47 p.m. ET
Judge Neil Gorsuch was confirmed Friday as the 113th justice to serve on the nation's highest court. The final vote was 54-45, mostly along party lines.
Gorsuch will be sworn in Monday. Chief Justice John Roberts will administer the constitutional oath in a private ceremony at the Supreme Court. Later in the day, Justice Anthony Kennedy, for whom Gorsuch once clerked, will administer the judicial oath in a ceremony at the White House.
Rumors among conservative activists have been swirling around Washington this year that Kennedy will retire at the end of this term of the high court, but the 80-year-old conservative justice, who sometimes votes with the court's liberals, has remained mum on his plans. Were he to be replaced by a Trump-nominated conservative justice, the balance of the court would almost certainly be tipped in a dramatically more conservative direction, and even Kennedy's own legacy on equality for gays and lesbians could be in jeopardy.
For now, though, the focus is on the court's newest justice, the 49-year-old Gorsuch.
His path to confirmation was relatively short by modern standards — just 65 days. But it was accomplished with a historic vote Thursday to end the U.S. Senate's filibuster rule for Supreme Court nominees.
Gorsuch takes the place of the late Justice Antonin Scalia, a conservative icon who died unexpectedly more than a year ago.
The new justice is also a conservative who adheres to many of the same positions that Scalia did. Indeed, some believe that Gorsuch will be more conservative.
While Scalia was enormously well-liked and admired by fellow justices, his harsh written rhetoric sometimes diminished his influence internally on the court. Gorsuch, in contrast, is known for his clear writing, but not for a harsh or dismissive writing style, and that could make him an influential justice on a court that is often closely divided on some major issues.
Though he obfuscated and evaded on many questions put to him during his confirmation hearing, all indications are that he will vote most often with the court's conservative bloc of justices, providing a fifth vote for a conservative majority in 5-4 cases.
The Supreme Court so far this year has punted on controversial issues, seemingly to avoid an indecisive 4-4 tie. But it has cases pending before it for next term that, if granted for review, could expand gun rights to include carrying concealed firearms in public; uphold state voting restrictions that critics contend are aimed at suppressing minority voter turnout; and allow business owners to refuse to serve gay couples, based on religious objections.
Within days of his swearing-in, Gorsuch is likely to face an issue that is particularly difficult for new justices — casting life or death votes on last-minute appeals in capital cases. The number of these cases right now is unusually large. Arkansas has scheduled eight executions for the 11 days after Easter, and it is all but certain that some of those cases will reach the Supreme Court.
Justices past and present have said that regardless of a new justice's experience on the lower courts, it is something very different to have the last word, and that it typically takes several years to get used to the breadth of the caseload and that responsibility. But for a new justice who joins the court mid-term, that task and the fire hose of decisions faced with little time to prepare, is even greater.
In 10 days, the justices will begin hearing their last round of arguments for this term. Among the cases to be heard is a closely watched case testing whether a Missouri church school was wrongly denied state funding for a program to make playgrounds safer. The state maintains that it cannot provide the funding without violating the constitutional requirement of separation of church and state.
Republicans change the rules
Prodded Thursday by Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, the Senate voted 52-48, along party lines, to trigger the so-called "nuclear option," eliminating the Senate filibuster for Supreme Court confirmations.
With a series of choreographed parliamentary maneuvers, Republicans were able, by majority vote, to abolish the longstanding rule that required 60 votes to cut off debate on a Supreme Court nomination. The victory prompted high-fives between Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell and the majority whip, Sen. John Cornyn.
Senators from both parties have warned that the move will have profound consequences for the Supreme Court, predicting that more ideologically extreme judges on the right and left will be nominated to the court if only a majority is needed for confirmation. Likewise, senators have predicted that the Supreme Court will itself be injected more and more as a central issue in Senate elections, further eroding the once prized bipartisanship that made the Senate "the world's most deliberative body."
Escalating tit-for-tat in the Senate
Republicans sought to blame Democrats for the shift in the Senate's rules, noting that it was the Democrats who first abandoned the filibuster rule with a majority vote maneuver in 2013.
But Democrats replied that they were left no choice after Republicans' systematic abuse of the filibuster during the first four years of the Obama presidency, making it extraordinarily difficult to confirm lower court and executive branch nominees.
Indeed, during President Barack Obama's first term, Republicans blocked or delayed executive branch and lower court nominations 79 times. That's more than half of all the 149 filibusters used against presidential nominees in the nation's history.
The Democrats noted that even as they abolished the filibuster for executive and lower court nominations in 2013, they left it in place for Supreme Court nominations, believing that lifetime appointments to the nation's highest court are different.
Some Republicans, like Sen. Ted Cruz, maintained on Thursday that the Democrats had bowed to demands from the "radical left" in demanding that Democratic senators "obstruct everything." And indeed, liberal activists have pressed Democratic senators hard on the Gorsuch nomination, threatening some with primary opponents if they voted to allow a quick vote for Gorsuch.
But Democrats cited a variety of reasons for their votes to bar a cutoff of debate on Gorsuch. Among them: his conservative judicial philosophy as expressed in his 10 years on the bench, his evasive answers during the confirmation hearing and a burning resentment at the Republicans' unprecedented refusal for nearly a year to even hold a hearing on Obama's nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court.
Thursday's vote means that from now on, all nominations, including those to the Supreme Court, can be quickly approved by a majority vote in the Senate.
The remaining question is whether Republicans will seek, by majority vote, to abolish the filibuster as it applies to legislation. On Thursday, Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah poured cold water on that idea.
"Oh no, we'll never do that," he said in response to a question. "If we do that, then the Senate will become like the House. The Senate is a place of deliberation. It's not supposed to be a place where you just move things quickly through, and the filibuster rule is a very great protection for the minority."
Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico said there are plans afoot among a bipartisan group of senators to organize a private meeting in the Old Supreme Court Chamber, located in the Capitol, later this year.
The goal, he said, is to see if senators can figure out a way to promote more bipartisanship in a body where the two parties barely work together at all anymore.
06 April 2017
Republicans’ ‘Nuclear Option’ Could Have Lasting Effects On Federal Judiciary & BREAKING: 8 Arrested to #StopGorsuch & Senate Pulls 'Nuclear' Trigger To Ease Gorsuch Confirmation 6APR17
THE repiglicans have voted to change the US Senate rules and eliminate the filibuster so neil gorsuch can be approved for the US Supreme Court by a simple majority. This is the most extreme political hypocrisy because not only did senate repiglicans prevent a vote on Pres Obama's nominee for the court Merrick Garland in 2016 they also filibustered 79 Obama appointments and nominations during his presidency as part of their obstructionism of anything Obama tried to accomplish. Yes, then Senate Majority Leader Sen Harry Reid D NV did invoke the nuclear option it was only out of desperation to overcome the racist, fascist obstructionist policy of Sen mitch mcconnell r KY and his like minded allies in the senate. Listen to Nina Totenberg's report on WAMU followed by a report from Democracy Spring and +NPR
Republicans’ ‘Nuclear Option’ Could Have Lasting Effects On Federal Judiciary
6 APR 17 Nina Totenberg
We just sat-in inside one of the Senate office buildings demanding the Senate vote NO to confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. 8 Democracy Spring leaders were arrested for their courageous act of civil disobedience and are still in police custody.
Gorsuch would be a disaster for our democracy and our communities. We need a Supreme Court justice who will overturn Citizens United and stop the flood of big money in politics, not make it even easier for billionaires to buy elections. We need a justice who will stand up for everyday working people and fight for women’s and LGBTQ rights, not side with corporations and backward ideologues on the wrong side of history.
We are using nonviolent civil disobedience to resist the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch and defend our democracy. Watch and share this video of this morning’s sit-in.
We need everyone to be a part of this fight. Senate Democrats have filibustered the GOP’s vote to close debate. And now it looks like Republicans are going through with the so called "nuclear option" to change the Senate rules and force Gorsuch onto the court. The final Senate confirmation vote will be tomorrow.
We’re in a final leg of this sprint. Here’s what you can do right now to help #StopGorsuch:
- Call your Senator and tell them to vote NO on Gorsuch: (202) 224-3121
The resistance is growing. The resistance is here.
Forward together,
The Democracy Spring team
This is how the Senate changes — not with a bang, but with a motion to overturn the ruling of the chair.
By a simple majority vote, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., set a new precedent in the Senate that will ease the confirmation for President Trump's Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch on Friday, after 30 more hours of debate on the floor.
"This will be the first, and last, partisan filibuster of a Supreme Court justice," said McConnell in a closing floor speech.
Senate Democrats voted against ending debate on Gorsuch's nomination on a near party-line vote, leaving Republicans shy the 60-vote hurdle required by Senate rules to move on to a final confirmation vote.
Democrats opposed Gorsuch for a variety of reasons, including his conservative judicial philosophy, dissatisfaction with his answers during his confirmation hearings and a simmering resentment towards McConnell's decision to block any consideration of President Obama's nominee Merrick Garland last year.
"We believe that what Republicans did to Merrick Garland was worse than a filibuster," said Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
So McConnell then, as promised, used the power of his position and with all of his GOP colleagues lined up behind him, to essentially change the rules of the Senate — to lower that threshold on Supreme Court nominations to end debate from 60 to 51 votes. The change did not affect the legislative filibuster.
McConnell made a point of order that ending debate on the nomination only requires a simple majority. The motion was not sustained by the chair because Senate rules required 60 votes, so McConnell then made a motion to overturn that ruling. And once that motion passed on a party-line vote, the Gorsuch nomination only needed 51 votes to clear the hurdle.
That mild-sounding parliamentary maneuver has the most destructive nickname, "the nuclear option," because it contains sweeping impact on the Senate, President Trump and all of his successors — and the nation as a whole.
By essentially eliminating the filibuster for Supreme Court nominees — an extension of the 2013 nuclear option triggered by then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., for all lower court and executive branch nominees — all presidential nominees will now face a far easier path navigating through the Senate confirmation process. It also could make it easier for presidents to appoint more overtly partisan justices to the Supreme Court.
The change will also test the character of the Senate and the people who serve in it, and lay bare whether the upper chamber is slowly lurching towards becoming more like the majority-driven and reactionary House of Representatives, where the minority party has little substantive role.
Opponents of easing the filibuster warn that the next and likely step is to eliminate the legislative filibuster, which allows any one senator to hold up a piece of legislation and requires a 60-vote threshold to break the logjam and move such a bill forward. Critics of the filibuster say the maneuver is abused and used so regularly that it has rendered the Senate incapable of acting on even routine legislative matters.
The filibuster and the rights it gives to individual senators and the minority party are reasons why the Senate has long considered itself "the greatest deliberative body in the world."
But the use of filibusters and the polarization between the two parties have dramatically increased in the past two decades, making it harder and harder for the Senate to reach bipartisan consensus even on matters like the annual 12 spending bills.
The impact of McConnell's move Thursday is a matter of heated debate, and its long-term effects are unpredictable. Advocates of changing the Senate rules on filibusters say it may be a necessary evolution for a polarized Congress to function in the modern era, while opponents say it threatens to send the nation further down a path where the two parties are so opposed that bipartisanship and centrism are relics of another era.
"Today's vote is a cautionary tale about how unbridled partisan escalation can ultimately overwhelm our basic inclination to work together, and frustrate our efforts to pull back, blocking us from steering the ship of the Senate away from the rocks," Schumer said.
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